Havana, Cuba:
Cuba will expand public access to the Internet next month by setting up another 118 places where people on this communist-run island can surf the Web for a fee, authorities said on Tuesday.
Set to start June 4, the extension takes advantage of an undersea fiber-optic cable from Venezuela and will gradually be rolled out further -- but not to homes, according to a resolution published only in the Official Gazette.
The notification says members of the public will be able to access the Web for $4.5 an hour, down from the current $6 an hour, or check their email for an unchanged $1.50 at the new sites.
These services "can only be accessed from the navigation rooms," said the resolution, which specifically ruled out the installation of Internet connections in homes.
There are now 200 public Internet rooms in hotels on the island. Post offices also provide access to email.
Cuba has one of the lowest levels of Internet access in Latin America: the number of users was 2.6 million in 2011 out of a population of 11.1 million, according to official statistics.
In January, state telecom agency Etecsa announced that an undersea fiber-optic cable from Venezuela had been activated, the first hard-wired link from the island to international telecom networks.
Havana has been unable to join other undersea fiber-optic cable networks due to a US embargo. Because of this, Cuba had connected to the Internet via slower satellites.
The government has blamed limited bandwidth for restrictions on Web access, saying it forces them to "prioritize" it for "social use" purposes, with priority given to universities, companies and research centers.
But dissidents have said the government's true goal is to control access to information and that it is another form of censorship in a country where all media outlets are state-controlled.